


A Mission to Beleriand

by MaureenLycaon



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaureenLycaon/pseuds/MaureenLycaon
Summary: The thoughts of a werewolf as he leads his pack over a mountain range on their way to Beleriand, in the days before the Sun and the Moon.
Kudos: 4





	A Mission to Beleriand

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright disclaimer: this world and its inhabitants belong to the Tolkien estate. Only the interpretation and the individual words belong to me. No infringement intended, only an exploration and a celebration of his world.
> 
> Shoutouts to Tyellas and Bellatrys, who commented on earlier versions.
> 
> Finished in December, 2002.

_"And ere long the evil creatures came even to Beleriand, over passes in the mountains, or up from the south through the dark forests. Wolves there were, or creatures that walked in wolf-shapes . . ."_

\-- J.R.R. Tolkien, "Of the Sindar", in **The Silmarillion**

Down from the spine of the Ered Luin they descend, trotting, padding, sometimes leaping. Wolf-shaped, yet larger than any true wolf. And fouler, with long, matted dark fur, their eyes gleaming with bottomless bloodlust such no true beast possesses. Aimed like deadly arrows at East Beleriand.

Were any natural creatures roaming these arctic heights, they would sense the werewolves' unnaturalness, by smell or by some more profound, unnamed sense, and flee. But the crags and ice fields are barren and lifeless. The werewolves run alone, unseen.

They have journeyed southward and eastward from distant Angband, crossing the cave-riddled stony plains, then the dark forests beyond. True wolves could not have made the journey so swiftly, for they ran always and needed little rest. Then they turned west and scaled this mountain range, finding and climbing through the narrow passes.

No moon sheds light upon their journey; no moon yet exists. They need fear no sun to burn away their darkness and send them shrinking back to their Master. Only unchanging starlight shines upon their going, but that is as sufficient for their keen eyes as it is for Elves'.

The one who leads them pads over the vast stony slopes, now heading ever downward, downward. His breath steams pale in the icy air.

The great snowfields and bare, rocky crags gleam under the stars, stark and terrible. This landscape is of harsh extremes: black shadows; white snow; naked, jagged stone; and all bitterly cold.

The werewolf leader does not regard it as beautiful, exactly, but he draws a certain comfort from the peaks' very harshness and barrenness, free from the subtle, weakening modulations of trees and grass. To him, these glacier-burdened slopes and starlight-gleaming rocks hold a strength that soft wooded plains and gentle river valleys can never match or even approach. A dim reminder of the ancient music of Melkor, a faint echo of that unimaginable strength and terrible majesty.

And memory crashes in on him, shattering his momentary peace. Once, he was fair and terrible as a great flame. Once, he knew the Light, and he sang in the First Music. The memory is a deep ache in him, trapped as he is now in the form of a mere beast, bound to the swings of hunger, thirst, exhaustion and pain -- pangs he never knew until the Lord of Werewolves imprisoned him within this shape.

He will never again clothe himself in beauty. He will never again walk in the Light. He can only hunger for it, a hunger that can never be wholly satisfied.

The memory recedes. With successive rebirths, he knows, it will fade entirely, leaving behind only the devouring hunger, a knowledge that gives him both bitterness and relief. But though this wolf-shaped spirit is ancient in being, he has not yet lost his first battle, endured his first death. No war has yet begun.

His pack are merely scouts, their mission to explore the Ered Luin and the forests of Beleriand beyond. To learn the unguarded mountain passes and where the paths descend into the lands inhabited by their enemies. To find the weaknesses, to probe for where the watch is least well kept.

He has not broken stride or whimpered, and none of his fellows appear to have sensed his momentary pain. The aching memory vanishes.

The more mundane pangs of physical hunger send rumbling through his belly. The pack will have to find food soon, or risk weakening.

For that, at least, there is hope. They are descending from the heights gripped only by eternal snow and ice, toward the first small patches of grass and herbs that herald the domains of life.

At last they cross a scent -- faint, but warm and savory: a great mountain goat, straying too far from the places of grass below. Without a thought, the lead werewolf turns from his course, swinging to follow it, and the others string out behind him.

The hunt that follows is swift and wholly bestial. Only as the goat is actually shrieking in their jaws does the werewolf come to himself a little once again, for this rending does not truly satisfy him. This dumb beast cries out only mindless terror and agony as they tear it apart.

He has ripped Elves apart, prisoners brought still living to him by the Lord of Werewolves. He has smelled and heard their anguish at thousands of years of immortal life ending in a fell beast's maw, sensed it in their minds as they flared and darkened in death. Devouring Elves satisfies him far more than slaughtering animals.

The pack makes no effort to prolong the goat's death. The werewolves eat their prey quickly, leaving behind only a stain of blood upon the rocks and a warm glow in their throats.

Later in their journey, they weary at last. With snap and snarl and sharply spoken command, the leader drives them on as long as he feels he safely can. Then he lets them sleep under a rocky overhang, in a small stony hollow that lets their bodies hold enough warmth to be comfortable.

In his sleep, he dreams once again.

He dreams of light, of music. Of the beauty that came from Melkor's voice, and of his own voice pealing out its hymn in the chorus that formed around the First Rebel's theme. Wild, fearless, without restraint or the thought of restraint.

In his sleep, he whimpers softly, once.

And then he dreams other things: of the dark joy and fierce pride of serving the Master of Werewolves, who himself once served under long-imprisoned Melkor. Of running with like others, glorying in the pack's strength. Of driving hunger, and the pleasure of the kill, of screaming prey perishing in his bloodied jaws.

It is these last emotions that carry into his waking, as he opens his eyes.

They descend past the first dark, stunted pine trees, little more than bushes. There is no time on their journey, only the cold white stars wheeling overhead. When the trees thicken and grow larger, they find a route along the top of a sharp ridge. They follow it, one wolf bounding behind the next in a strung-out line, until the ridge broadens into a tiny rocky plateau. There, they pause before trying to find a way to resume their path downward.

The lead werewolf stands at the western edge of the little plateau to gaze downward, and sees their destination.

Below lies the vast land of East Beleriand, black with dense forest under the starlight, stretching away uncounted leagues into the darkness. Following instinct, the werewolf sniffs the air, inhales only the fragrance of pine. He catches no trace of Dwarf or Elf.

There, in the lands held by the weakling Elves, his pack must go. Only to probe, not to do battle unless they must. Nevertheless, the bottomless hunger that always moves him stirs him now to a small, hidden hope that they will have an opportunity to taste Elf-flesh before they return.

Some time in the undreamed future, the last great Battle will begin, when all who must now wear wolf-forms join countless others in a final triumphant assault upon those who foolishly spurned his Liege. In that hour, they will savage sentient prey until they grow weary, glorying in the screams of their foes, drinking their fill of blood and agony at last.

The werewolf feels an urge to howl, to join his song with the darkness between the stars yet again and hear the others singing with him. No; it would alert their enemies below. He suppresses it.

A single snarl from him rouses his subordinates from their own musings. Finding the narrow path that leads from the plateau downward, he takes it, the others falling into place behind him as he descends toward the forest below.


End file.
